Account admin

In Upwork's roles table the account admin "Sets up the configuration for the Upwork account". Its listed permissions: establish APIs and integrations, configure the Upwork account, manage memberships and assign roles, and receive finance-related notifications.

The settings only an admin or the owner can touch. Upwork's agency articles repeat one rule: exclusive members' hourly rates, profile visibility and earnings privacy on the agency roster can be edited only by the agency owner or a member with the Account admin role. If a field is greyed out, Upwork says you need Account admin permissions. An agency manager without the admin role cannot change them.

Other places Upwork says "admin". Several help articles refer to agency admins without always naming the role:

• only the owner and members with admin privileges can edit the agency profile and contact information;
• only the owner and agency admins can buy agency Connects;
• owners and admins can edit member roles under Teams & Members;
• an invitation to join an agency comes from the owner or an agency administrator.

Integrations. Establishing APIs and integrations is the role's first listed permission. Creating and rotating an organization's API key also has a narrower role of its own, API Key Manager, for someone who should manage the key without managing the team.

Because this role manages memberships and assigns roles, it is the one an agency should give most sparingly.

How Upsight uses it. Upsight's guide to applying for an Upwork API key tells agencies to apply while switched into the agency context, so the key can see every member's proposals, and notes that the person applying must be an Account Admin or API Key Manager in the agency, or be in their own freelancer context. A key made in a personal context sees only that person's proposals.